


those summers

by nikmood



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikmood/pseuds/nikmood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how different each summer is, it still stays the same</p>
            </blockquote>





	those summers

_"...these are the days of the endless summer..."_

 

Last summer was a lot like this summer. I'm almost afraid of next summer; who's left to mourn? Last summer it was Mom, this summer it's TaraandWillow. 

I never mourned Buffy, how can you mourn yourself?

I know some people would think it's totally horrible of me, but I miss Tara more than Mom. I mean, in actually chronological time, Tara was my mom twice as long as Mom was. Or something. Sometimes in my head the two of them get confused and mixed up in a big jumbly jumble, y'know? They loved me. And they're gone and never coming back.

The summer without Buffy and Mom, I had these freakish blobs pop up on my skin. At first they looked like little zits, but then they got bigger and more painful. When one of them burst and this disgusting puss comes oozing out (I know, nice visual, right?), I freaked and got Tara. She said that they were boils, and that she used to get them when she was little, she told me in a sad voice, because according to her brother she had bad blood. But I don't have bad blood, just borrowed blood. She fixed me up this paste of rosemary and sea salt and mint and baking soda and tea tree oil and put on them, and they cleared up. The very first one left a scar though. Every time I touch it, I think of Tara leaning over me, her hair piled up on top of her head, humming the theme to "Happy Days" and brushing that goop onto my shoulder with feather-like strokes.

When Tara and Willow moved in, they planted a small herb garden full of mint and oregano and lavender and basil and thyme and rosemary. I used to love to go out to it, and run my hands along the leaves, to feel them growing under my hands, my fingers smelling sharp and pungent and like...life in its purest essence.

Last summer was easier than this summer.

Last summer, Riley came back. He expected to find the same Summers girls that he had left, but instead he found a useless ball of green glowy stuff wrapped up in the body of a fifteen year old being baby-sat by her surrogate sapphic parents. He cried when Willow told him. I sat on the couch, feeling numb; because I knew he'd be gone soon. No one stays long here, not if they want to stay the same. Riley and Tara took me to the same park that Riley once took me to, the one with the carousel, and for a brief shining moment I got to pretend that I was a normal kid, and Tara was my normal mom and Riley was my normal dad, and we lived in a normal town where the only thing that had sharp pointy teeth was my kitten Frisky. Sometimes it's nice to pretend.

This summer, no one came back. It was just me and Buffy and Xander, and sometimes I wish I could trade them in for my pretend carousel family of Riley and Tara. That felt more real, then. Now everything is too bright and harsh and real. I wonder if this is how Buffy felt...after. This summer, everything's so real it's become a dream.

But what's real anyway? One good spell and I'm back to being corporeal. Buffy thought that vampires weren't real the very first time she went out with Merrick, but she's certainly gotten up close and personal with enough of them to prove otherwise. Of course, Buffy also thought that we were also just a figment of her schitzo-fied imagination not that long ago. I used to think that my family was real, and that I could always count on them. But I guess I grew up sometime and learned that I can't even really count on myself.

Summer's a good time to learn lessons like that.


End file.
